WhatsApp will no longer charge subscription fees - <AUTHOR> https://blog.whatsapp.com/615/Making-WhatsApp-free-and-more-useful <comment><USER2> I remember being prompted for a small payment once or twice but still ended up being able to use the app regardless? strange

</comment><comment><USER3> Telegram has its Bot API which, among many other things, makes it possible for any organization or individual to create applications that "allow you to use [Telegram] to communicate with businesses and organizations that you want to hear from".

Telegram offers this for free.

</comment><comment><USER4> Facebook's already doing similar things in their Messenger app with some narrowly-defined usecases, such as ordering an Uber:

[https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/12/introducing- transportat...](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/12/introducing- transportation-on-messenger/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm just going to stick to Email :) I'm old enough to see all these messaging applications come and go (ICQ, MSN Messanger anyone?). I'd rather see a company try and improve email's flaws then try and force new protocols and undefined encryption down our throats.

Yes I sound grumpy, but that's because all my family are on WhatsApp and I don't want to be :)

</comment><comment><USER6> For the 5 years I've been using WhatsApp, I've never been charged anything. I always get a "trial extension", even after changing numbers many times and changing countries 3 times.

I don't know if this happens frequently, or I'm just lucky

</comment><comment><USER7> I was in the audience and he gave a pretty clear hint that commerce (a la tencent) would be the path forward for monetization

</comment><comment><USER8> When a business becomes "free" with no clear indication what the monetization model is, my "spider" senses are tingling. Time to abandon ship.

</comment><comment><USER9> Worth reading of course is the post (pre FB acquisition) on why they don't sell ads: [https://blog.whatsapp.com/245/Why-we-dont-sell- ads](https://blog.whatsapp.com/245/Why-we-dont-sell-ads)

<comment><USER10> And for those who didn't read the link, the punchline at the end of that post is:

"When people ask us why we charge for WhatsApp, we say 'Have you considered the alternative?'"

The (implied) alternative here is advertising; the author just spent the previous 8 paragraphs discussing all the unpleasantness and creepiness that that entails.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Not that I have met anyone who paid for Whatsapp, ever. :)

<comment><USER12> I paid 99c for Whatsapp on iOS years back. This was before IAP and I believe it was the only way to get it on the platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> When I very recently started using WhatsApp, the client displayed a link to a blog post[0] they wrote about why charging subscription fees was important and a good thing:

"At every company that sells ads, a significant portion of their engineering team spends their day tuning data mining, writing better code to collect all your personal data, upgrading the servers that hold all the data and making sure it's all being logged and collated and sliced and packaged and shipped out... And at the end of the day the result of it all is a slightly different advertising banner in your browser or on your mobile screen.

"Remember, when advertising is involved you the user are the product.

...

"When people ask us why we charge for WhatsApp, we say 'Have you considered the alternative?'"

Given that this new blog post carefully talks about not introducing "third- party ads", presumably first-party ads are still on the table? Which would make this new model the alternative that they warned us about earlier.

[0] [https://blog.whatsapp.com/245/Why-we-dont-sell- ads](https://blog.whatsapp.com/245/Why-we-dont-sell-ads)

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure how true that ever was. I've been using WhatsApp for years and never paid anything. They'd always just extend the subscription. None of my friends ever paid anything either (most of the people who use WhatsApp here don't even have a CC on file at Google Play).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't think I ever paid fees for Whatsapp, and I'm not sure how or why. But this also seems too late. Facebook own them, my family started using Facebook, and with Messenger as a separate app I more or less lost any incentive to use it.

<comment><USER16> I think only new sign ups after the fee introduction paid the fee.

<comment><USER17> When I signed up for WhatsApp in 2012, the iOS app cost 0.79 € (I believe it was a promotion, usually 1.79 €) and gave me a free lifetime license. I think the Android app already asked for a yearly fee after one year at that time, at least in theory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Starting this year, we will test tools that allow you to use WhatsApp to > communicate with businesses and organizations that you want to hear from. > That could mean communicating with your bank about whether a recent > transaction was fraudulent, or with an airline about a delayed flight.

Sounds a lot like what WeChat has been doing in China with their Official Accounts.

Best explanation I could find quickly: [http://knowledge.ckgsb.edu.cn/2016/01/13/ecommerce/welcome-t...](http://knowledge.ckgsb.edu.cn/2016/01/13/ecommerce/welcome- to-the-wechat-galaxy/)

Instead of, say, downloading the Uber app to get a ride, you'd open up WeChat and message its app account.

<comment><USER19> This. A messaging app like WhatsApp could become a platform. I'm not sure how the "apps" in this world would look like but I would find it great if text interactions (like on IRC, in the shell, or a text adventure) would have a comeback. Forget most of HTML/CSS and get back to basics ;-) In reality, some graphical UI will probably be necessary.

<comment><USER18> I just wish we had a good way to do this without locking it all into a single proprietary platform.

<comment><USER20> Text messages?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't like that WhatsApp is tied to my phone number.

<comment><USER22> FWIW, this was my biggest gripe with it too. I did not start using WhatsApp till 2014 while all of my friends had already switched a couple of years back. I was happy with Facebook messenger, but i was forced to switch to be in the loop. Although since Facebook messenger also needs your number to verify the phone, if I remember correctly, it hardly matters.

I have recently made the switch to Signal[1], and made my partner switch too. It's been a blessing.

[1] [https://whispersystems.org/](https://whispersystems.org/)

<comment><USER23> Sadly signal uses your number too.

<comment><USER22> Yes. But I'd rather give it to moxie than anybody else.

<comment><USER23> Your name and number are already in all major databases if you have any friends with smartphones.

I am just annoyed that I cannot choose and control my 'identity' but instead am bound to the provider's number.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Paid business services for customer interaction, sound like a plausible business model for WhatsApp. However, I get the feeling this is only part of the story. I assume that data mined by WhatsApp are probably more valuable to Facebook.

<comment><USER25> I would agree. I think their user base has hit some tipping point which ensures other revenue streams. That's the only reason I can think they would throw the fees... out the window.

(nice user name)

<comment><USER26> So I know internal figures from facebook regarding whatsapp. A large majority of our users are never actually charged a subscription fee.

The app is facing stiff competition in some markets against apps that don't have any subscription model. Even though whatsapp won't actually charge those users the presence of a subscription feature seems to be causing a growth hinderance.

Not sure how it will compete in these markets now given the entrenched nature of social platforms and how hard it is to convince people to switch but that remains to be seen.

Also, until recently whatsapp/facebook couldn't actually read any message sent by users to other users/groups because of the end to end encryption in place. Not sure why they would change that just to get a data mined revenue source, metadata is quite sufficient for that. Even with NSLs on fb in place, the impossibility of of us to read the messages in whatsapp is sufficient reason to deny a NSL request.

Zuck doesn't really interfere with whatsapp, but like with some other things this seems like a bid to increase DAUs and retention instead of any new source of revenue.

<comment><USER14> > until recently whatsapp/facebook couldn't actually read any message sent by > users to other users/groups because of the end to end encryption in place

Does that mean they can now?

<comment><USER26> Your question would have been answered if you had read the paragraph.

That statement is based on my latest information, which is a few months dated, that they couldn't. Things could have changed but it's unlikely.

<comment><USER14> The paragraph doesn't say anything one way or another.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I, for one, shudder at the thought of Facebook getting my banking messages. Telegram has been a great alternative although it's not perfect.

<comment><USER28> I'd be much more nervous about Telegram getting that data.

<comment><USER29> It's a toss up:

\- WhatsApp uses reputable cryptography from reputable sources, but combines it with a UI so much designed for ease of use that it throws out the possibility of real security

\- Telegram uses extremely questionable cryptography to begin with from people who probably shouldn't be designing cryptosystems

If you want real security, go use Signal or better, OTR where socialist millionaire's is still an option for key verification.

<comment><USER30> > OTR where socialist millionaire's is still an option for key verification.

Can you explain the socialist millionaire comment? I don't get it.

<comment><USER31> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_millionaires](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_millionaires)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Signal is also free and based on a business model that doesn't require eventually being able to interfere with your privacy and mine your data.

[https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/signal-private- messenger/id8...](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/signal-private- messenger/id874139669?mt=8)

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.thoughtcri...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.thoughtcrime.securesms&hl=en)

<comment><USER33> What business model _is_ Signal based on?

<comment><USER24> From their description in the iTunes store: 'Pay Nothing - Signal is supported by a team of dedicated developers, community donations, and grants. There are no advertisements, and it doesn't cost anything to use.'

<comment><USER34> So it's a project, not a business.

<comment><USER35> You say that as if is has less value for not being a business.

When ideals are involved (strong encryption, privacy, ad-free), being run as a lean, open-source project is worth much more than being owned by a megacorp like Facebook.

<comment><USER34> > _You say that as if is has less value for not being a business._

No, I did not :-P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> That's too bad. If you're paying, you're the customer. If you're not paying, you're the product.

<comment><USER37> People seem to say this all the time, but assuming it's true, what's inherently wrong with "being the product"?

<comment><USER38> > what's inherently wrong with "being the product"?

Products are sold

<comment><USER39> Humans love being slaves...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are there any good websites for tracking stock prices? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Check "Tijori Finance"[1][2] if you want more information on companies than just stock prices such as how they make revenue, their sales breakdown and multiple key performance indicators/operational metrics (eg. how much did they spend on R&D compared to their competitors)

disclaimer: I work for tijorifinance

[1][https://tijorifinance.com/](https://tijorifinance.com/)

[2][https://tijorifinance.com/us/](https://tijorifinance.com/us/)

<comment><USER3> The search function on that website is utter shit. Just letting you know

<comment><USER2> it'd be helpful if you could explain this bit :-)

<comment><USER3> I was on the indian version of the site without realizing. The search function on the US version is good. You should put some information on the main page that it is for indian stocks or whatever.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the reply. We do have some updates on the UI, rolling out soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This question might need more details.

Google finance? Yahoo finance? Webull

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm looking for more data, less Jim Cramer types.

<comment><USER4> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23785570](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23785570)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Capital Market Laboratories: [https://www.cmlviz.com/home](https://www.cmlviz.com/home)

Also technical analysis with precision is free (for now) [https://stock.trademachine.com/register/free- membership/](https://stock.trademachine.com/register/free-membership/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Your discount brokerage should have a reasonably solid web interface for equities data. Koyfin.com is also decent.

<comment><AUTHOR> Koyfin looks cool, thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For fundamental data and fundamental based screener, I found stockrow.com very good. For technical based screener ( It has a lot of fundamental parameters too), finviz.com is very good. ( It has ads though) I would love to hear from others on any other good tool with clean UI.

</comment><comment><USER8> You can set up a free account at a place like Charles Schwab and get pretty good data. If you're really into technical analysis and charts you can download free software called thinkorswim from TD Ameritrade

</comment><comment><USER9> Yahoo finance has charts and all sorts of data. I think you can setup alerts. I believe they have APIs to access it too.</comment>


Unforgettable Factory Registration - <AUTHOR> http://www.nirfriedman.com/2018/04/29/unforgettable-factory/ <comment><AUTHOR> hello, how can I use your factory in a static library? from example, the Cat, Dog class are compiled to a static library, and the main.cpp links to the library and create the objects we want. from my test, this won't work.Thanks!</comment>


MariaMole, an Arduino IDE for advanced developers (and beginners too) - <AUTHOR> http://dalpix.com/mariamole

<comment><USER2> Rather than insulting you for committing the mortal HN sin of releasing on Windows, I'm going to say - great job. Looks fantastic and it is great to see how vibrant the Arduino community is these days. Keep up the good work and good luck with your search for contributors.

<comment><USER3> I've sent the author an email offering help with moving it to a toolkit of some sort that is not so tightly tied to windows. wx or qt or anything that's not windows only.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Disappointing that it is Windows only.

<comment><USER5> If you have the time, skills, and inclination to help, see item 4):

<http://dalpix.com/blog/help-development-mariamole>

<comment><USER6> Can you write in which language/toolkit is MariaMole written? I think it's a fundamental information when asking people for help with the code.

<comment><USER3> C++, using VCL [ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Component_Library> ], unfortunately. A port would largely be a rewrite of the entire GUI bit. The rest is fairly portable, except it assumes some things about how the arduino install is structured.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> After attempting to use the Eclipse plugin tonight, failing, and reverting back to the Arduino IDE, I too would be interested in this making it to Linux.

</comment><comment><USER8> Out of curiosity, how was the name chosen,... MariaMole?

<comment><USER9> Not sure how that was chosen, but sounds cool. It's a Brazilian candy, very cheap and delicious. I think it is made of coconut, sugar and jelly.

[http://www.google.com/search?q=maria+mole&oq=maria+mole&...](http://www.google.com/search?q=maria+mole&oq=maria+mole&sugexp=chrome,mod=14&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Thank you for this wonderful Arduino IDE! Cheers :)

</comment><comment><USER11> Most of my projects occur on Linux, save dealing with iPhone unlocking/jailbreaking (done in VirtualBox).

I hope they get the Linux port out stat, because the Windows one is pretty useless _to me_.</comment>


On Thomas Hobbes and Leviathan - <AUTHOR> https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/20/the-100-best-nonfiction-books-no-94-leviathan-thomas-hobbes-1651 <comment><USER2> Kind of tangental, but I've started this history of civilization that was recommended to me by some anarchist friends and which frames the parts I've read in terms of that Leviathan. So far it's been interesting if not super convincing:

[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fredy-perlman- agains...](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fredy-perlman-against-his- story-against-leviathan.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> If Syria has taught is anything I hope it is that Hobbes is right -- however bad you think your current government is, civil war or revolution is worse.

<comment><USER4> The American Civil War suggests the opposite may be true when the "your" in "your government" starts to become unpacked. "All civil wars are bad" produces logical contradictions such as both the rise and the fall of the Soviet Union were bad.

<comment><USER5> The US Civil War killed 620,000 people, and ruined the lives of many others. That's pretty freaking bad. On the upside, it freed about 3.9 million slaves, but really there should have been a less costly political solution to the slavery problem, as was found in every other country in the Americas at around the same time.

>"All civil wars are bad" produces logical contradictions such as both the rise and the fall of the Soviet Union were bad.

The fall of the Soviet Union didn't occasion a Civil War.

<comment><USER4> Keeping in mind that this is a _philosophical_ counter example regarding Hobbesian political philosophy. See, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Russian_constitutional_cr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Russian_constitutional_crisis)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Off-topic, tangental, but related. In a fit of sheer political science nerdery I got the Sovereign from the cover of Leviathan tattooed on my shoulder. Been wanting it for years but finally got it done a couple weeks ago.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's a fascinating book, though the social contract theory that has been built on it is quite problematic.

Coincidentally, this week's instalment of Existential Comics features Hobbes, and is both funny and incisive:

[http://existentialcomics.com/comic/211](http://existentialcomics.com/comic/211)

</comment><comment><USER8> i've noticed that, whenever an adult enters the picture, hobbes turns from a bundle of energy into a paper tiger.

</comment><comment><USER9> What is this doing on HN you may ask? I'm not the OP, but the Leviathan was a study on power and trade-offs. Hobbes would have been aghast at the largely unchecked power Facebook, Google, etc. hold. The absence of any social contract, one that is otherwise present between the individual and government, means these multinational corporations are free to (very effectively) compete with Governments for power, with little upside for the individual & society.

<comment><USER4> The Hobbesian sovereign has only one source of authority, keeping the peace. To the degree multi-nationals keep the peace they have legitimate claims to Hobbesian sovereignty. I'm not saying that Hobbesian sovereignty is a good thing, just pointing to the philosophical mileposts.

      Locke != Hobbes

The only time an individual has the right to oppose the Hobbesian Sovereign is on their way to the gallows. Otherwise, the social contract holds.

<comment><USER10> I didn't understand the last paragraph.

<comment><USER11> Not OP, but I think the point trying to be made by that last sentence is that in a world ruled by a Hobbesian Sovereign, no single individual has the right to oppose the sovereign. Such rebellion in a Hobbesian world should and would be a punished as a capital offence.

<comment><USER4> Not what I meant, see my comments further down. Opposition is a superior right when faced with certain death at the direction of the sovereign. This has implications in terms of the relationship of Hobbes to _political_ anarchy in cases where _politcal_ anarchy opposes conscription as oppression by the state. [1] Then it becomes a matter of the degree to which death is certain.

[1]: [https://books.google.com/books?id=DiYlDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT180&lpg=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=DiYlDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT180&lpg=PT180&dq=political+anarchy+conscription&source=bl&ots=LKBh5hpApD&sig=i1fbsu1sNCwL- UNS_uqMopu9hJ0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwikt-2f2M3XAhVLOiYKHRavCLMQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=political%20anarchy%20conscription&f=false)

<comment><USER11> Glad you could clear that up! My inability to interpret your comment is only surpassed by my inability to interpret Hobbes ;)

<comment><USER4> I enjoyed these, [http://philosophybites.com/hobbes/](http://philosophybites.com/hobbes/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Proving Amy Hoy Wrong: The $0.99 Challenge - <AUTHOR> http://sachagreif.com/proving-amy-hoy-wrong-the-0-99-challenge/

<comment><USER2> I hope you have an option to buy copies for friends(who get it in their email).</comment>


Groupon CEO Apologizes For Poorly Executed Offer In Japan - <AUTHOR> http://info.groupon.jp/topics/20110117-515.html <comment><AUTHOR> Aside from missing the opportunity to bow a time or six, I think this was close to perfect for execution of an apology (both by Japanese standards and for companies generally). Heartfelt apology, total acceptance of responsibility, comes straight from the top, makes full amends to customers, identifies specific changes made to address problem in the future, closes with thanks to customers.

Edited to add: For extra credit, it might have been worthwhile to apologize to the merchant for failing to prevent a situation which caused their wares to be presented in an unflattering manner.

This probably stands reality on it's head, but what actually happened on one particular day in Tokyo is not maximally relevant to Groupon's Japanese business, and having a reputation for being magnanimous and savvy to how the game is played can only help them in the future. Again, though, I think they did really well.

<comment><USER2> I doubt this is OK by Japanese standards. Did anyone commit suicide?

<comment><USER3> If you're serious: patio11 has lived in Japan for many years and I think it's safe to say that he has a good understanding of Japanese cultural norms.

If you're not serious: This joke is in extremely poor taste.

<comment><USER4> He hasn't lived in Japan very long at all if he doesn't recognize that this is one of those stereotypes with some significant basis in reality. Japan has almost twice the US's suicide rate, and it is indeed an act with heavy cultural significance.

Suggest removing sticks from nether regions... both of you.

<comment><USER5> If you read Patrick's response you will see it is polite, realistic and nuanced. Your comment: not so much.

Japan has twice the suicide rate which is still not a lot. It's about the same as Finland. This is not a subject that can be (nor should be) easily reduced to a "Japanese people commit suicide a lot" kind of stereotype, so lets not do it.

[http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suicider...](http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suiciderates/en/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Japanese reaction on news announcement forum:

"Apologize in Japanese." ← Most popular

"Apologizing in a shirt? Wear a suit, you trash."

"Groupon is a fraud outfit." ← Due to other controversies

"Groupon CEO is a kid? No wonder..."

"An American's apology has no meaning. He was even wearing casual clothes. This was more like a an excuse rather than an apology. He didn't even bow. He made things worse."

"Groupon is run by a foreigner?"

"The youtube account has videos of them abusing a dog. I'm reporting this."

Other controversies: People buy restaurant coupons with an expiry date in X months. They call to make a reservation and are told that they are fully booked for X months.

People are sold chinese made gyoza. This fact is not stated in the advertisement which has some fishy statements. This is particularly sensitive because chinese foodstuff is worthless in Japan.

<comment><AUTHOR> For people reading this, just remember, /b/ didn't like the apology either.

<comment><USER7> My feeling is that /b/ has a surprisingly high density of Japanese cultural experts -- what with considering the large number of high quality Anime subtitle work coming out of parts of that community.

<comment><USER8> I think they usually hang out around other, Japanese-related boards. /b/ has little respect for anime or anything in general, and it's almost impossible to organize anything in the huge, fast-moving mess it has become.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Some context for those who want a quick summary of what happened and why the apology.

\- In Japan during the first few days of the new year, they traditionally cook meals called osechi-ryori to celebrate. But nowadays, people just buy premade meals on line and have them delivered.

-Groupon advertised with a company called Bird Cafe to have a special discount on the meals.

-Bird Cafe could not handle the amount of orders, and delivered late and with bad quality. When the meals arrived they were no where close to the advertised pictures. Pretty much it was like ordering a hot meal, and what was delivered was a microwaved frozen dinner.

Many customers were outraged and the blogs lit up in Japan about the mistake on Groupon's part.

The video is about apologizing for the mistake and talks about how to ensure such quality issues do not happen again. Mostly by making sure the companies they work with can handle the orders and uphold their product as advertised.

</comment><comment><USER10> Watching this makes you wonder what stops all companies from responding this way when they screw up. Is it really something as cynical as the lawyers running the show? I don't get it. A heartfelt apology goes such a long way towards rebuilding customer trust, it's a shame that more people aren't willing to lay it on the line like this. Compare this response to Kevin Rose's handling of the Digg v4 disaster. We all know what happened in the latter case, but I wouldn't be surprised if this helps, rather than hurts Groupon.

Class act.

<comment><USER11> A lot of people cannot accept the fact that they or those under their command commit mistakes. Even if they didn't do it personally, they have to take personal responsibility for those under them, for the good and for the bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm a big fan of groupon, but this situation is going to repeat itself, I'm sure.

Recent example:

<http://www.groupon.jp/deal-detail/cid/4054>

For those who don't read Japanese, that's a mom&pop-like Thai place doing a 500-yen ($6) all-you-can-eat coupon.

They sold 3500 coupons.

I just can't fathom the economics behind that one.

<comment><USER13> I can't believe I'm defending Group on but.. the normal price for that set is 1000 yen. Furthermore, it's for the lunch menu (ランチバイキング) and the time restriction is such that I doubt they'll ever have to honour all of the coupons. (Furthermore, they are cooking in bulk and you are stuck with whatever they have; I doubt they will strain themselves with the deal)

I can think of a few places that are all-you-can-eat (tabehodai) for 1000 yen. I wouldn't bet on the quality of food, but sometimes you luck out. 500 is insanely cheap, but it is near the break-even point (if you aren't including rent)

<comment><USER14> Groupon also takes ~50% of the total selling price.

So you are really looking at 250 yen; Around half the break-even point by your estimates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Google translation link (somewhat intelligible) for the benefit of people who can't read Japanese: [http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Finfo.gr...](http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Finfo.groupon.jp%2Ftopics%2F20110117-515.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> My bad. The video is in English -- watch that and you'll get most of the benefit.

The other Japanese text reads (my rough translation, you get what you pay for):

To our customers who ordered Bird Cafe [n.b. name of advertiser]'s "Kinsei Osechi" [n.b. name of product -- osechi is a a food box delivered at New Years], related parties, and Groupon's fans: we are sorry for having caused you trouble with the Kinsei Osechi Groupon offer. Our CEO Andrew Mason, founder of Groupon, explains how Groupon will take the utmost measures to stop similar incidents worldwide in his apology message:

Video goes here.

Not only Groupon Japan but all worldwide Groupon companies will take corrective steps to prevent this sort of occurrence from happening again. The measures include:

\+ Strengthening pre-deal investigation of merchants

\+ Improving the setting of deal size limits [to prevent overwhelming merchants' ability to deliver]

\+ Establishing a dedicated customer support office for purchasers of Groupons

\+ Improving training of employees and our internal management systems so that our customers and merchants can trust us sufficiently to do business.

Thank you for using Groupon. We hope to continue earning your trust in the future.

[Transcript of video begins here. You can listen to English.]

<comment><USER15> One of the most important and I guess up until now overlooked point is setting deal size limits in close collaboration with the merchants. For only they know honestly how many of the advertised deals can they deliver till it starts to affect the quality.

As for apologizing to the merchants, I am assuming that they must have known all the way along about how many orders were they capable of handling before they had to resort to delivering that what was not the same as the advertised deal.

<comment><AUTHOR> :As for apologizing to the merchants, I am assuming that they must have known all the way along about how many orders were they capable of handling before they had to resort to delivering that what was not the same as the advertised deal.*

I think that assumption is perhaps optimistic. Your average local takeout place is not Toyota: they probably run things mostly on feel, rather than on having a rigorously documented and optimized process, and it is highly unlikely they've ever thought through capacity planning for "Can you take five times your busiest day ever? Can you take ten times your busiest day ever?", because for traditional businesses that just doesn't happen. Groupon's strategy for addressing this apparently includes communicating to merchants that Groupon is capable of overwhelming them past anything they have previously experienced.

<comment><USER5> I've heard a lot of people who are mad at the merchant and think it's their own fault for accepting so many orders. That may be true, but there is a huge conflict of interest for Groupon. They get a chunk of the money for each deal so I can only imagine hey push the merchant to offer as large a deal as possible. I would love to see how their sales staff operates. Groupon's interests are pretty aligned with the customer; they probably view merchants as upstream suppliers who need to be squeezed for maximum profit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've done quite a bit of business in Japan and in my opinion this is very well done. Well, there could have been more bows, and the word "apologize" could have appeared more often, but overall this was a sincere apology, which really counts.

When I started watching the video I was afraid of an insincere or an incomplete apology ("…and if anyone feels offended, we apologize…") which would be a complete disaster, especially coming from an American speaking in English.

</comment><comment><USER17> "This restaurant has been optimized against the Slashdot effect."

</comment><comment><USER18> Many businesses jump into offering deals on social buying sites without realizing the potential amount of customers it can get them. The truth is business owners should first of all make sure the deal is worth doing, since sometimes they end up losing money due to the huge amount of people that buy the deal. Besides, getting so many customers all at once, requires businesses to hire extra help, make sure they have enough stock of whatever they sell and basically be ready for handling a lot of people all at once without these disasters happening. I read a good article on what to take into consideration before jumping into offering a deal in sites like Groupon <http://bit.ly/fd0B6E>.

<comment><USER19> That shortened URL points to [http://blog.pinggers.com/2011/01/8-tips-for- your-business-to...](http://blog.pinggers.com/2011/01/8-tips-for-your- business-to-survive-a-groupon-like-deal/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Watching this video, pretty much tells why Groupon is going so fast. This is the way one should treat his users.</comment>


Work full time in school, little time for much else. Am I over worrying? - <AUTHOR> I'm currently going into my Sophomore year. While I only take 3 classes max a semester, I work 40-45 hours a week to be able to afford rent and what not. And no, taking out a bunch of loans to pay for rent is unfortunately not an option.
Between work, school and (for what it's worth) a relationship, I feel I have very little time for much else. Projects for example. I have tons of little things I am wanting to try, build, and learn about, but finding the time to do this is hard. Sometimes after a 10 hour work day and 2-3 hours of studying and homework, I just don't have the motivation to do anything else.
I stress about this a ton. About my lack of technical experience on my resume and all the time I spend at an unrelated job. Am I stressing too much? I make fine grades, I just worry I'm hurting my chances by not being able to do all the extra things that seem to do.
I recently had a phone interview with a local startup for an internship. While the guy loved my personality and communication skills, I simply didn't have enough technical experience for him to be willing to offer me a position. I had nothing to talk about when he asked about side projects and so on. This was a huge bummer. I'm very eager for relevant experience.
Does anybody have any advise on perhaps how to use my time better or if they have any personal experience that could help? <comment><USER2> It's probably impossible for you to fit anything else into your schedule between a full time job and three classes. From my perspective, working fulltime during school makes a candidate more attractive rather than less, even if you're waiting tables. It shows you value your education way beyond someone who's just taking classes, that you're willing to stretch yourself to the limit to get there. That's admirable. Ceteris paribus, I'd take the hard worker over the Github portfolio.</comment>


Happy _why day  - <AUTHOR> http://whyday.org/?year=2013

<comment><USER2> The wacky version of esoteric community celebrity worship around here is not useful. It does not produce any knowledge I can apply or find enlightening. It is not relevant to my day, is it relevant to yours? I do not understand why people find this sort of thing appealing.

<comment><USER3> I know! It's really bizarre. It's almost like some people have different preferences from you or something. Let's spend more time talking about how people with different preferences are weird and stupid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you're looking for a way in which this applies to you as someone who was never familiar with _why until his disappearance was originally broken on this website four years ago today, I'd invite you to either read the post this links to, or else bear the following in mind:

      * build something awesome, or fun to build
      * help a young person do the same

If you don't think this will improve your abilities (I'd assert that it will) then at least it might help you remember why you got into this game in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER5> Love the call to teach children programming. For those interested in getting into this world, one of the longest running related projects is MIT Media Lab's Scratch: [http://scratch.mit.edu/](http://scratch.mit.edu/)

On top of this, I think it's a wonderful idea to teach not only kids, but also high school students to code (or at least try to initiate motivation to learn computer science).</comment>


America has two economies, and they're diverging fast - <AUTHOR> https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2019/09/10/america-has-two-economies-and-theyre-diverging-fast/ <comment><USER2> The charts have a number of issues. With some changes, they can easily show the significance along with the trend itself. I created a new version of figure 2, which fixes some of the issues:

[https://svgur.com/i/F35.svg](https://svgur.com/i/F35.svg) [SVG]

* Bar charts are preferred when presenting a population of something (people or jobs)

* Each Y-axis starts at zero

* Charts that (by definition) add up to 100% are shown as stacked

* The y-axis max is set to 100% where possible (except in one case, where this obscured the trend)

(I couldn't get Google Sheets to make a nice x-axis for the first chart)

<comment><USER3> Thank you! And how did you learn these guidelines? Is there a book or blog post you recommend for data visualization best practices?

<comment><USER4> Nathan yau has a great book

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >"As such, the Democratic Party is now anchored in the nation's booming, but highly unequal, metro areas, while the GOP relies on aging and economically stagnant manufacturing-reliant rural and exurban communities."

The analysis of averages can be misleading. Democratic districts appear to include both some of the poorest urban cores and wealthiest suburbs. I wonder how the GINI coefficient of Republican versus Democratic districts compares?

Also, the makeup of the 111th House was 256 D, 178 R and the makeup of the 116th House was 235 D, 199 R, a swing of about 10 districts to the Republicans. But note that in the 114th House the makeup had been 188 D, 247 R and the map was even redder.

<comment><USER6> _GINI coefficient of Republican versus Democratic districts_

You can get an idea from the states.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Gini_co...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Gini_coefficient)

It won't surprise you to reveal that Utah features the greatest amount of economic equality. When you chart Democrats' income it tends to be bimodal-- poor people voting for tax money and rich people voting for [insert mystery reasons here--stopping climate change? ethnic interests? to please TV clowns?].

<comment><USER7> Mostly, the "mystery reason" is that self-interested voting is prevalent only among the needy and the greedy. At one end are those who feel it's necessary for their own survival (even when they're wrong or when the policies they vote for actually harm them). At the other end are the rentiers who never had any guiding principle other than self-interest. In between are the many reasonably-prosperous and mostly-urban folks who can afford to vote their conscience. When the personal effect of a policy ranges from slight benefit to slight harm, in neither case affecting one's basic quality of life or social standing, it becomes a lot easier to vote for policies that one sincerely and logically believes are best in a utilitarian sense.

<comment><USER8> I've heard more than one person on the greedy in say "I find candidate X detestable as a person but I knew I had a better chance at tax cuts."

<comment><USER9> Sure, but we're talking about tendencies, the average ability for people in these different groups to vote in this way, not in absolute "everyone votes this way" terms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One major factor that needs to be considered when looking at these data is that the electoral districts (the unit of measure here) were redrawn with significant changes after the 2010 census (taking control of state legislatures in order to redraw the maps to be much more favorable was a key component of Republican strategy). As a result conparing 2008 and 2018 as if those congressional districts were the same may be skewed.

<comment><USER11> Yeah. I was disappointed to see that there wasn't a comparison between 2011 and 2013 to try to identify how big that effect was.

Wikipedia has images that can give a vague idea of the geographic shift (which I like especially because they show which districts flipped in the election). It looks to me that some of the major shifts were independent of gerrymandering (e.g. Dakotas becoming solidly Republican, Dem control solidifying over coastal Pacific and around NYC), while others might have been tied to it (e.g. compaction of Dem control in UT, AL, MS).

2010 election: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ac/20...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ac/2010_House_elections.svg/400px-2010_House_elections.svg.png)

2012 election: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/US...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/US_House_2012.svg/400px- US_House_2012.svg.png)

2018 election: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/US...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/US_House_2018.svg/400px- US_House_2018.svg.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow, this really blew my mind. The divergence is striking. Even without words, the article really explains the contemporary social situation in the US. It makes me wonder if remote-work, high COL in tech hubs, higher-ed cost exhaustion, tech burn-out, and the next recession will reconfigure things. Like the article states, the amount of unbalance here can't be sustainable though "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" kind of idea should be kept front and center in this discussion. I am worried a massive wealth transfer coordinated by the government (e.g., single payer healthcare, UBI, basic housing guarantee, free college, etc.) will entrench this divergence. I wish we had let the last recession ('08) actual happen instead of cheap money for a decade allowing us to kick the can down the road. Intervention in the capital markets a la the past decade probably amplified this phenomenon by pulling money from productive, structural capacity increases instead of to loss-leading Unicorns that wouldn't work in an economic system that accurately priced risk (i.e., higher interest rates). A company like Uber, though amazing to me and I use all the time, could only exist with cheap money for a decade. The idea of building a company by losing money for 10 years in order to build your client base is impossible if rates are high. That capital would have looked for more "real" investments that probably would have valued what these areas that lost GDP over the past decade could have provided.

<comment><USER13> > I am worried a massive wealth transfer ... e.g., single payer healthcare

Only in America is adequate health provision considered "massive wealth transfer"

<comment><USER14> It is a massive wealth transfer. It may be a good idea, too. Currently 2/3 of non-elderly people have insurance through their employers. If we need to extend coverage to those who don't have it, those 2/3 will have to pay for the other 1/3\. If we are proposing a massive income transfer of $3 trillion a year for the good of the country, we have to be honest about it.

<comment><USER15> There's an additional wealth transfer between the owners of healthcare related stocks and non owners. If the US approached EU type health care costs we could easily give every one health care for free. The cost would come out of healthcare company margins.

<comment><USER14> Totally false. Total health industry publicly traded company profits (including drug companies, hospitals, and insurance companies) add up to about $50 billion per quarter, or $200 billion per year _worldwide_ : [https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2018/11/12/Chart-Day-Big- Phar...](https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2018/11/12/Chart-Day-Big-Pharmas- Profits).

Total domestic hospital profits (including more than just public companies) is about $74 billion per year: [https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20180104/NEWS/18010...](https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20180104/NEWS/180109966/hospital- profits-continued-their-rise-in-2016). Insurance companies are $25 billion annualized: [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/05/top-health-insurers- profit-s...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/05/top-health-insurers-profit- surge-29-percent-to-6-billion-dollars.html) ($7 billion per quarter for health insurers). The link above shows $100 billion in drug company profits worldwide; about half of revenues are in the US, so let's say $100 billion in profits domestically. That's $200 billion for the US healthcare industry, including non-public companies in addition to publicly traded companies.

Total US healthcare spending is $3.5 trillion. Profits account for just 6% of that spending.

To reduce healthcare spending to the same levels as the rich European countries like Germany or France we'd have to cut spending about $1.25 trillion. Cutting healthcare industry profits to zero (and note that there are for-profit hospitals and drug companies in the EU and they don't make zero profit!) would reduce healthcare expenditures by just 1/6 of the amount required.

<comment><USER16> A better estimate for savings from some parts of the industry is _revenue_ not profit. That's because the work done by, for example, insurance companies is largely useless paper shuffling that doesn't need to exist under single payer.

Edit: oh yeah, and marketing. So much health industry money ends up in marketing. Something almost completely unnecessary under single-payer as well.

<comment><USER14> The post I was replying to was talking about wealth transfer from people to shareholders. Profit is the proper measure of that.

As to cost savings, you can't use insurance industry revenue because that includes money spent on services. And a lot of the "paper shuffling" does need to exist under single payer. Most universal healthcare systems aren't nationalized systems like the UK NHS. Germany for example has mandatory membership in Public health insurance organizations for those making under 60,000 euro. There are 100+ of those. Then 15% of the population has private health insurance. Care providers are mostly private. So there is still medical billing that needs to be done. Most EU countries are similar in that regard, and unlike the UK NHS.

As to marketing, now you're talking about a drop in the bucket. Pharma industry advertising adds up to just $6 billion per year.

<comment><USER17> I support pretty much any solution that provides guaranteed access to effective acute care (the fact that the ER can't legally turn you away doesn't mean it's effective care).

But people who advocate for this position (which, again, I believe in) all too often live in a fantasy world where we can magically switch systems and pay less. If we keep paying US medical personnel their prevailing wages, there is no way we're going to lower costs.

Nurses and doctors are too popular in the US to ever even suggest that we reduce their wages to European levels.

<comment><USER18> Acute care, including the ER, is a small fraction of the total cost of health care. If the health care problem was simply ensuring everyone access to a GP's office and an ER for emergencies, we'd have solved it by now.

<comment><USER17> Oh, absolutely.

Providing effective and low cost chronic care is an unsolved problem everywhere.

I can't say that I support any and all entitlement schemes I've ever heard for chronic care, is why I was singling our acute care, where I do, but you're right that I was mixing up arguments.

But of course when you provide low cost acute care, and don't cover chronic conditions, there's strong pressure for chronic problems to wait until they're acute and harder to solve, and for chronic patients to use the acute system very inefficiently.

It is indeed a hard problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wish their charts didn't just draw straight lines from 2008 to 2018 data points. The data points in between could be meaningful.

<comment><USER20> I woke up early and can't get back to sleep so my phone is in Digital Wellbeing mode (grayscale screen). Those chart lines are nearly impossible to distinguish from each other. Should have gone with a dash or other marking.

<comment><USER21> or I don't know, maybe you should turn off your 'Digital Wellbeing mode'?

<comment><USER22> They can, but that's not an option for colorblind people?

<comment><USER21> Absolutely true. That was not the argument made though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> __"Blue" territories have seen their productivity climb from $118,000 per worker in 2008 to $139,000 in 2018. Republican-district productivity, by contrast, remains stuck at about $110,000. __

How is productivity measured? I have wondered about this stat as I have seen it used many times over the years but I can 't figure out what and how they are measuring or who is doing the measuring.

Take Weyerhaeuser as an example- they own 26 million acres of land across North America, have 10,000 employees and 7+ billion in revenue. Recently their corporate headquarters moved to Seattle. Is their 7 billion in revenue spread across all the loggers, drivers and mill workers in remote forest locations? Boeing is another example with headquarters in Chicago but as far as I know they don't make any planes in Chicago.

Are these stats pulled from census, irs, labor...? Am I wrong or cynical in thinking these are lazy stats and most of the "productivity" is attributed to the small percentage of employees in the corporate HQs? I can't imagine a fed bean-counter following around logging trucks in remote areas to make sure the productivity is attributed to the correct region.

<comment><USER24> Productivity is measured by dividing GDP by total hours worked, with the assumptions that GDP is caused by work and that the relationship is linear. The latter assumption is false and the former is highly suspect.

You raise a good question about localization of GDP. The global economy is a highly-connected network. It's often unclear how to draw valid conclusions from national accounts, let alone the local accounting attempted here.

That said, I think there most likely is a trend of the kind imagined by the authors and that it's showing up in these figures. Showing up is the most it's doing though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This article shows that districts that tend to vote democratic are more prosperous, and the gap is growing. However, people who are more prosperous* (income > $200k) tend to vote Republican over all. I can't explain that. If I were going to guess it would be because older people tend to have more wealth and income in America (in general) and older people sku more republican.

*[https://brandongaille.com/24-interesting-republican-vs-democ...](https://brandongaille.com/24-interesting-republican-vs-democrat-demographics/)

<comment><USER26> Why would that be hard to understand. It makes total sense.

People making >200k probably use almost no government resources, and are sick of getting taxed up the arse left and right at any opportunity.

I'd be happy to pay more tax if I had any faith the money would be used wisely, but I don't. Hence, my goal when voting is tax minimization.

<comment><USER8> If people who are wealthier are older they are getting social security and Medicare. Everyone is getting roads to drive on, police, and other government services. They probably are still sending their kids to public schools and moved into the "good neighborhoods" to get into better schools.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This makes me think about the book 'Coming Apart' [0] which was an eye opening read which predicts all of this. As a tech/media person in a democratic costal city, there is a whole other America that, it turns out, I know very little about.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_Apart_(book)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_Apart_\(book\))

<comment><USER28> As a dev from flyover country what was something that surprised you? Getting rid of misconceptions is the sort of glue that could prevent this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I stopped reading when figure one showed only two data points on a chart without zero based y-axis. It portrays a divergence that -looks- like a multi factor difference, but is only a 20% at most divergence. This coupled without historical comparison for normal variance and the repeated use of excited adjectives, makes for an alarmist article.

</comment><comment><USER30> I really appreciate how this article just presents information without trying to blame anyone or push a political agenda.

<comment><USER31> Not sure if you're joking, but just in case you're not... to me the political agenda was particularly clear.

<comment><USER30> I wasn't joking. Seems to me it could just as easily be used to support the "liberal elites are out of touch with real Americans" narrative as the "Tump voters are dumb bumpkins" narrative.

<comment><USER31> Well, yes it could. Because it's a brilliant example of liberal elites being out of touch with real Americans.

<comment><USER32> What exactly is a Real American?

<comment><USER31> If I ask you if you're American and you say yes, then guess what? You're a Real American.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> YES. This article clearly answers what I was asking about a month after the presidential election.

"Why aren't Democrats trying to answer _everyone 's_ problems? And realizing that someone is telling you they have a _need_ if they vote for the other party?"

Turns out, politics is in its own filter bubble. Democrats honestly can't relate to rural or manufacturing areas anymore, and Republicans can't relate to urban or technology areas.

<comment><USER34> > "Why aren't Democrats trying to answer everyone's problems? And realizing > that someone is telling you they have a need if they vote for the other > party?"

Not true in all cases. Particularly look at what is going on with farmers in the midwest voting directly against their economic self interest.

<comment><USER14> Why is it bad when farmers in the Midwest vote their conscience, against their supposed self interest, but it's good for rich programmers to vote against their self interest? The Trump tax cuts were good for me—am I obliged to vote for him?

<comment><USER34> I should have been clearer. Voting against your self interest is not an issue (and can even be admirable).

The issue I have is farmers relying on state welfare to stay solvent while they vote against their economic interests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I would really enjoy seeing an article like this paired with analysis from somebody with the same education level but from the University of Chicago economics department or something like that. They'd probably tell two very different stories. A few things that jumped out at me:

Two of the sectors where the author is touting gains for Democrats both have significant left-leaning bias: academia and tech. How does that play into this?

Democrats are getting more college degrees now, but which degrees?

Why start so many graphs of Democrats doing better than Republicans in 2008 when we had a big recession and a new president who didn't prioritize rural America? Why not go back to 2000 or 1990 so we can get a bigger picture?

And pardon my ignorance, but "GDP per seat"? And why is this graph next to _Median household income_? Are they saying that the changes in median household income are causing "GDP per seat" to rise? Urban populations have changed _a lot_ in the past 10 years, are we even talking about the same households?

Household income statistics are prone to distortions[0], GDP per seat is probably prone to even more, why not use GDP per capita? It feels like they were just happy to find two graphs where the Democrat line went up and the Republican line went down and they know most people will just glance at the graph without wasting their morning thinking about what GDP per seat really means and how it's affected by the population flows of the past decade.

[0] - [https://www.creators.com/read/thomas- sowell/09/16/misleading...](https://www.creators.com/read/thomas- sowell/09/16/misleading-statistics)

</comment><comment><USER36> I wonder how much the lack of high-speed Internet plays into the stagnant economic prosperity of rural America.

<comment><USER37> Not a lot. High-speed Internet is good to have, but it does not make your farm better, productivity higher and product prices higher. You don't "digitally enhance" your manufacturing plant with faster Internet unless the speed of Internet is keeping you from achieving better productivity - most of the time, not the case, plants have all local systems and they use SCADA, not fancy screens or kubernetes.

<comment><USER38> Perhaps the general hope is that we can replace all wealth due to manufacturing, resource extraction, food production, with that produced via internet advertising.

<comment><USER37> I haven't seen yet anyone eating internet advertising, living in it, heating with it, driving it etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Something this article doesn't specifically call out is age. Anecdotally, it seems that the upcoming generations are more liberal than the last, and that the older population is simply dying off. Perhaps someone can cite direct evidence of this?

<comment><USER40> I agree. The article is generally lacking demographic data. Are younger, better educated, more productive people moving from red to blue districts? Is the share of the population living in the red districts shrinking? There are a lot of open questions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Are these conclusions correct though? They show the electoral map and the districts that were lost. Those are more rural and more traditional industry focused areas.

It is more likely that coastal Democrat's income and education was always higher than rural leaning counties and remained at par between these two time periods. To state that this materially changes the Democratic party is not right.

</comment><comment><USER42> There are only two charts in that article that matter. The ones on productivity and education. These explain everything else in the article.

The article over generalizes on geography. My city is deeply red but it recently passed San Francisco in population and is growing faster in nearly all metrics including jobs, housing, wages, and so forth. I think the article is generally correct in that urban clusters tend to be more blue and rural areas tend to be more red, but that is a product of population density more than anything economically related. Despite my city now having more people than San Francisco it is also growing geographically and can maintain its average density. It is now geographically larger than Dallas. If this rate of growth is maintained this city may enter the top ten of US cities, both area and population, over coming decades and it will probably continue to be a red congressional district.

Also, next door is a suburb that is possibly the wealthiest mid-sized city in the country and it's also in this red district.

</comment><comment><USER43> I stopped reading at "low-skill".

<comment><USER38> lol. Good point. I would like to see everyone's list on what a 'skill' really means. It would make a good basis for a discussion.

a quick edit: It's a question that really began gnawing at my mind over the last few minutes. What is a skill?

To tell you the (highly likely) truth, I could probably take on the jobs the authors hold and do a perfectly acceptable professional job given a desk, a library, a phone, a web browser, and a five minute head start. Are they 'skilled'?

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Given much of the economic growth is in tech and tech tends to concentrate in urban centers, urban centers tend to be blue. Can this be much of a surprise? The Administration's self-promoted gains in manufacturing and mining are impaired by some of that technology. Automation has played huge roles in the very industries Trump heralded for his voter base in 2016. You no longer need an army of humans on the production floor or even in the coal mine, making those, formerly high-paying jobs, a thing of the past. This leaves an entire population of disenfranchised to whom immigrants are a major threat as is outsourcing. So these numbers and graphs should not be a surprise to anyone.

</comment><comment><USER45> I suspect this is exactly what makes the Trump-style platforms viable even if they make no real sense.

</comment><comment><USER46> In other words, Trump's Republican party is losing votes in more highly educated districts, which not surprisingly fare better in the information-age economy. Conversely, it gains votes in districts with a lower education.

<comment><USER37> Are the Republicans "Trump's party" or Trump is just riding the wave?

<comment><USER38> Both?

My guess is that the dividing line between 'Red' and 'Blue' is being renegotiated as we speak. The post-WWI political arguments, largely about economics, are being replaced by something new. Trump obviously has a good nose for these matters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> In case anyone was wondering why the level of statistical sophistication on show here would embarrass many an English major, the primary author, Mark Muro, was educated at Harvard and Berkeley, where he was presumably better at English literature than he now is at statistics or statistics-heavy journalism.

Here is his CV:

[https://www.brookings.edu/wp- content/uploads/2016/02/metro_2...](https://www.brookings.edu/wp- content/uploads/2016/02/metro_20160809_markmurocv.pdf)

Including this gem from almost a decade ago:

"Bill Gates, Not Congress, Has the Solution to Global Warming." The Avenue, A blog of The New Republic. January 25, 2010.

I'm glad that worked out so well for us.

Don't miss this:

[https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the- avenue/2019/08/23/instead...](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the- avenue/2019/08/23/instead-of-bemoaning-wealth-work-make-it-better/)

Tl;dr: "wealth work" is here to stay, yes it's a "servant economy" but we should just tax and regulate, so that the servants feel better about their jobs walking the dogs of people too rich and lazy to walk their own dogs.

</comment><comment><USER47> > Democratic districts have seen their median household income soar in a > decade—from $54,000 in 2008 to $61,000 in 2018. During that decade the US > had an inflation rate between 1 and 2%, which is around $5-10k. So really > there was no "soaring" at all: democrats barely manage to hold on to their > wealth/lifestyle while republicans are continuously losing and worse off > than the years before.

Everyone in the country is losing except for Jeff Bezos and his caste of rich capitalists who are served by the corrupt politicians of either party.

</comment><comment><USER48> I'm not Republican or Democrat, but I find the Math provided not agreeing with their conclusions.

Given more than 60% of tech workers do not identify as Democrat, the conclusions that tech workers are Democrats are silly.

I identify with only a few Democrat Candidates and fiscally think Democrats are regressive.

That said, Republicans also don't align with my social or economic views. (Tariffs and government spending)

If I had to guess why this article exists, they are pressuring people into thinking educated rich people vote Democrat.

<comment><USER49> > Given more than 60% of tech workers do not identify as Democrat

[citation needed]

But for clarity, I'd like to see "identify as X" and "identify as neither".

For some numbers which don't agree see [https://www.vox.com/policy-and- politics/2017/9/6/16260326/te...](https://www.vox.com/policy-and- politics/2017/9/6/16260326/tech-entrepreneurs-survey-politics-liberal- regulation-unions)

"They found that, broadly speaking, tech entrepreneurs are pretty liberal. 75.2 percent voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and 61.3 percent identified as Democrats"

<comment><USER50> Yeah dude doesn't realize there is the catch all part of independents who make up more registered people than either dem or republican party.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> All of these think tanks devour money from God-knows-who and shit it out into a " _lies, damn lies, and statistics_ " narrative for God-knows-what-purpose.

All I'm reading out of this--in-between the lines of course--is " _Booga booga red staters! You 're all going down into an abyss of poverty and opioid addiction. Better sell the farm, borrow six figures for a new job credential, prostrate yourself before any corporation that might take you in, move to the city, and spend $2k/month to live in a shoebox_"

In other words, wall street wants even more tropical mansions.</comment>


Take the Next Step, Paul - <AUTHOR> http://www.stubbleblog.com/index.php/2008/03/take-the-next-step-paul/

<comment><USER2> This is something I've actually meant to ask pg about, but never seem to get around to it.

There are a few companies that YC has funded that have opted to go a slow- growth, close ownership, path to small business success that the article suggests is the logical conclusion of pg's essay (though, if one takes pg's work as a whole, I wouldn't say that's his raison d'etre--helping good developers create a huge amount of value in a short period of time is more his over-arching theme, I think).

Wufoo have opted not to push themselves into a giant business, but have a long-term plan for growth. My co-founder and I frequently waffle over which path to take, and so far have stayed the course of staying small with steadily increasing revenue over taking a bunch of investment and growing really fast. Both companies do have an exit plan, but it's a little further out and the intention is to make sure its on our own terms. pg has never indicated dissatisfaction with this path...even though it means the exit won't come quickly, as it did with reddit, Zenter, Parakey, etc. and thus YC won't see return on these businesses for at least a couple more years.

Of course, once one has a profitable exit, and optionally vests, you're then completely free to work in any environment you want. Which means you could do what Paul Buchheit did with his Googlebucks, and start a company that does exactly the work you want to do on the terms you want to do them on (and it turns out he wants to grow really fast, since he raised 5mil for FriendFeed). Which brings me back to what I think pg's real theme and logical conclusion is. pg likes to see people make something really great, really fast, and then make a really lot of money because of it. Once you've done that, you're then freed up to do anything you want (maybe after spending some time in a cage with your lion co-founders, while vesting)--including doing it all again.

<comment><USER3> Wufoo is going to surprise everyone.

<comment><USER4> Did Google not ate their lunch when it introduced forms in Google Doc's Spreadsheet? That basically took away their raison d'etre.

<comment><USER3> They said it had no effect at all on their growth. They did not seem impressed with what Google has so far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I replied to this a couple days ago in a comment thread:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=143480>

<comment><USER5> What about the other possibility, Paul? 37Signals or Smugmug stay small & profitable, grow organically, but never straying from their true self. There is no big exit, but people (founders as well as other employees) are happy. Would that be another logical outcome of your original essay?

In fact, going public introduces all manner of considerations that often inherently introduce "bossiness", so this alternative seems even more logical to me! For one, public companies have to grow, grow and grow and a lot of the bad stuff about companies you point out in your essay arises from that one source. They do bad deals, they start to think very "strategically" (ignoring the human element) and so on.

<comment><USER3> 37Signals and Smugmug don't prove much yet because they aren't that old. I'd be willing to bet both either die, go public, or get bought within the next 10 years.

It's easy to stay medium-sized if you're a consulting firm, but hard if you're a product company. As a product company you tend to either extreme: you either keep growing, or die. And if you keep growing, you'll eventually either go public or get an acquisition offer so big it's hard to turn down.

I might turn out to be wrong. This world changes fast. But there aren't a lot of 20 year old 37Signalses around.

Bezos seems to agree with me. He invested in 37Signals. He would not have done that if he didn't expect some form of exit. And in fact 37Signals probably had to say explicitly that they expected some form of exit in order to get his money.

<comment><USER5> I grant that they are not that old yet. One counter-example of a software company that has kept growing organically is SAS Institute (now $2+ billion and counting). Don't know anything about their internal culture - they say attrition rate is very low.

I would modify the "grow or die" to "adapt or die" because it is really lack of adaptation that seems to kill, and lack of growth may be a manifestation of lack of adaptation. I am not sure size is actually a benefit or hindrance to adaptation (it may be neither). It is theoretically possible for a small company around in 1985 to have adapted itself successfully through waves of change. But alas the only company I can think of that has come anywhere close to adapting through waves of change is Microsoft (and even it hasn't adapted that well).

An example of botched adaptation is the Altavista search engine from Digital. I remember the time it was the most advanced search engine (at a time when Gates didn't think search even mattered). The parent company entirely missed their value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a great post, by far the best response to PG's post. I had much the same question, but I am not as good at formulating it the way this guy has done it.

I have a feeling PG was aware of this logical implication when he wrote his essay ("if large companies constrain, err, even cage people, why put heart and soul into something just to deliver it to them?") Yeah, there is the money, but most people I know don't put heart and soul into work _only_ for the money, and PG himself is doing Arc, YC, Hacker News etc. without any particular monetary goal. I wonder what his response would be!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I found this post interesting despite errors, e.g. PG is _not_ a venture capitalist.

<comment><USER6> I don't think this guy made that assertion. What he said was that PG needs to be part of the VC game in order to make money.

The whole notion of YC is that they are seed funding, with the expectation that the startups they fund will be bought (or have some other favorable monetary transaction) by the big companies PG says are unnatural. The article is a nice way of calling PG a hypocrite.

It's a great argument. One of the best counters I've seen to PG's essay, and an angle I didn't even think of. I really hope Paul responds to this, as I'm interested in his thoughts on the matter.

<comment><USER2> Actually, he explicitly called pg a venture capitalist...specifically, he said:

"He's a venture capitalist."

You can't possibly take that any other way.

<comment><USER7> That's sort of a semantic debate, isn't it? PG might not be a traditional venture capitalist, but nevertheless, he invests money in companies in order to see a return. YC just does it on a much smaller scale than typical VC firms.

<comment><USER8> > That's sort of a semantic debate, isn't it?

No.

There's one very significant difference between a VC and YC. VC's invest other people's money. YC doesn't. VC's may also invest their own money, but this is incidental to their primary business, which is to assemble investment portfolios for other people to invest in. They charge a fee for this, and many VC's make most of their money from these fees, not from the returns on the investments.

This has real consequences. VC's are much more risk-averse than YC, because if they have a bad year it can put them out of business. (No one will want to invest their money in a VC which lost money for their previous investors.) If YC has a bad year they can just shrug it off, learn from the experience, and try again.

This dynamic also changes the VC's risk posture in another way. A VC has much more to lose from a loss than they have to gain from a really big win. If a VC has a really big win, most of the money goes to the investors, not to the VC. The VC's primary benefit from a Really Big Win will be that more people will want to participate in their next round of investments, which is nice, but that in and of itself doesn't make you a billionaire. So VC's are much more interested in avoiding loss than in going after a Really Big Win. YC, by contrast, has nothing to lose from a loss except the money they put in (which is not much), and a lot to gain from a Really Big Win (since they are the investor). This makes YC willing to take much bigger gambles than a VC would. It also aligns YC's interests with the interests of the companies they invest in, since the bigger the company wins, the bigger YC wins.

<comment><USER6> You're confusing being a VC with the standard VC fund.

You don't need to have the latter to be the former. A VC can use their own money exclusively, and do so all the time. The professional VC's that manage pooled investments of other people are only a subset of the term Venture Capitalist.

<comment><USER3> In the industry, the term "VC" is used exclusively for people who manage venture capital firms. I'm not considered a VC. Closer to an angel. But that usually implies an individual person. There's no name yet for the kind of thing YC is.

<comment><USER9> "But that usually implies an individual person"

Not really... <http://www.bandangels.com/> What's the difference between YC and these guys? Maybe in the amounts invested.

<comment><USER3> These angel groups usually have a different structure. You go and present to them and the angels individually decide whether they want to invest. Whereas YC itself is the investor in the startups we fund, as with a VC firm.

<comment><USER9> Ok and I guess this is a lot different too... (the mgmt team bit)

Q: What does the Band look for in their initial review?

As with most venture funds, the Band seeks to invest in companies with a strong management team, unique technology and a large potential market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think we need to look at the landscape of the startup community. If you didn't have to grow to survive, then it would be fair to say that the goal is to create opportunities for people to 'live as they should'. However, the fact is that it is hard to stay afloat if you don't grow. Growth, as defined by how big your company gets and how much market share it has, is also an indication of how long the company will last. Ideally, the bigger your company is, the more it can do, and the more market share your company has, the less your competitors have. This means that you need to grow in order to survive - otherwise your competitors will take the market share from you and leave you without a business.

If you manage your successful company like a startup all of its life, then you'll hit failure sooner because startups just have a higher chance of failure because of their risk taking nature. Corporate structure just carries along a lower inherent risk.

</comment><comment><USER11> What is a small business incubator? Empirically "incubators" in the silicon valley / software world have all been total failures.

<comment><USER3> As far as I can tell it means an investor whose space the startups work in. We deliberately avoided that, because we feel it hurts the startups. It puts the founders in the position of employees.

Plus offices are actually crappy places to start startups. Apartments are better.</comment></comment>


Sen.Schumer Calls for 'Nerd Bus' to Connect NYC's New Tech Hubs - <AUTHOR> http://politicker.com/2012/08/schumer-calls-for-nerd-bus-to-connect-citys-new-tech-hubs/ <comment><USER2> Schumer might do better to simply do less supporting of legislation that would cripple tech startups (like SOPA).

And maybe (as Jon Stewart noted) use the term "experts" instead of "nerds":

<http://ispnews.com/jon-stewart-defends-nerds-as-experts/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Nerd is a term of contempt and disrespect in the minds of power brokers at his level.

I suppose the idea is that if these engineers or "nerds" as he calls them would just work for less they'd be happen to be able to take a municipal bus to work each day.

<comment><USER4> It struck me as a little derogatory as well. Why not tech bus or hacker bus? I suppose nerd bus generates more headlines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Actually a bus like this would be fantastic, though I think they should hold a algorithm competition to figure out the density of startups and then the shortest path for the bus to take to hit all of them. I mean the density is laid out here: <http://mappedinny.com/>

</comment><comment><USER6> This is a good move forward, but most people within their right mind stay away from MTA buses.

<comment><USER7> I thought so too (sane people avoid MTA buses) and have never actually ridden one but it turns that the people who do ride them generally like them a lot.

The advantages I've heard repeatedly (compared to taking a subway) are:

1) Convenient locations for pickup/dropoff ("it's right by my [office|apartment]")

2) Easy to get cross town

3) Cell phone works (as it's above ground and most of the subway doesn't have femtocells installs)</comment></comment>


New Internet Explorer 8 accelerates browsing - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2009/01/26/latest-release-of-internet-explorer-8-accelerates-browsing/

<comment><USER2> From that article, all I can gather is that it accelerates lock-in.</comment>


Chrome's geolocation fails daily due to API limit - <AUTHOR> https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=753242 <comment><USER2> Heh, so Google's own projects run into Google rate limits too.

<comment><USER3> Rate limits are how services prevent even legitimate clients from accidentally destroying them!

<comment><USER4> It's pretty weird in this case.

Google serves web pages and adds rate limits to keep people from taking their servers down (or, at least, from making them use way more servers than normal, which would make providing the services too expensive, which would force them to take the servers down). If their servers go down, then users can no longer use their web pages properly. But, here we see the rate limiting is itself keeping users from using web pages properly. So the rate limiting is effectively disabling services even though the whole point of the rate limit is to protect them!

I wonder if there are other feedback loops in Chrome where, in order to be able to keep serving web pages, Google could sometimes accidentally prevent Chrome users from viewing web pages?

<comment><USER5> The API key built into Chrome isn't exactly super secure - anyone can reverse engineer the binary to extract it.

One might imagine that an evil user has done exactly that, and started sending billions of requests to the API, exhausting the quota.

It is better to have the quota exhaust, effectively blocking all Chrome users, than have the service fail due to overload which would block _all_ users (for example, maps.google.com, and iOS and Android)

The long term fix is probably to issue temporary per-user keys to each signed in user, so that anyone who misuses the key will only block themselves. Since Chrome allows non-signed in users, there will be considerable complexity and difficulty with that approach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've been told this has been addressed.

If you want to test POSITION_UNAVAILABLE, IE 11 always fails after the first request.

For anyone interested, the location emulation in Chrome Dev Tools is also buggy, Chrome also fires two callbacks on failure, TIMEOUT and POSITION_UNAVAILABLE [https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=542923](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=542923)

<comment><USER6> Comment 9 by email@example.com, Today (33 minutes ago) Status: Started Thank you for reporting. We have adjusted API limits that should ease this immediately. Our monitoring is clearly not sufficient and we will follow up with process improvements to avoid this recurring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> does this mean that technically (not legally) one can extract API credentials form chromium/chrome and use them in other project?

<comment><USER8> You can do that for practically any API you can imagine if you are creative enough.

<comment><USER7> i don't understand what do you mean. how can i do that? f.e. how would i do that with AWS API?

the thing with chromium is: it is open source (you can find the credentials), it is meant to be used on any computer via any IP (you can't whitelist API requests)

<comment><USER9> >the thing with chromium is: it is open source (you can find the credentials)

No, you have to get your own API keys via Google Cloud API Manager _before_ building chromium. That's the reason why Chromium on Windows doesn't let you log in.

I presume Chromium on linux distros will use an API key of the package maintainer.

Also, in most closed source binaries (which chrome _is_ a part because it has binary blobs not present in Chromium - see Google Cast, etc) you will have to sign a EULA where you agree to no disassemble and use that API key, so doing so is illegal too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm almost sure this also happens with the translation API. Some days when I try to translate websites I get 403 errors and I have to wait for some time until I can use the feature again.

</comment><comment><USER11> [https://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/api- keys](https://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/api-keys)

<comment><USER12> Interesting... if you make a chromium derivative, you need to pay for user's google API access. Or replace them with something else.

<comment><USER13> You can use Mozilla's free geolocation service based on crowd-sourced location data for hundreds of millions of Wi-Fi access points, cell towers, and Bluetooth beacons. The website has a zoomable world map of network location coverage:

[https://location.services.mozilla.com/map](https://location.services.mozilla.com/map)</comment></comment></comment>


A Bottom-Up View of Kotlin Coroutines - <AUTHOR> https://www.infoq.com/articles/kotlin-coroutines-bottom-up/ <comment><AUTHOR> The presentation in the article is actually top-down, contrary to the title.

An alternative title could be "all the hoops we have to jump through because we don't have lightweight threads and Loom yet".

</comment><comment><USER2> > You might say that coroutines are the monads of parallel programming.

Nope. concurrency. parallelism is a resource.

</comment><comment><USER3> Excellent article, and it is still unclear to me about how to reenter the code block if suspension occurs.</comment>


Show HN: StockXchange by Zense - <AUTHOR>

We are students from IIIT-Bangalore. We have created a virtual stock trading game. This game provides a platform for users to trade real stocks at real time prices with virtual money in a risk free environment. It's a good learning tool as well as a fun and addictive game. It contains stocks from both the Indian National Stock Exchange as well as from NASDAQ Stock Market.<p>http://spandan.iiitb.ac.in/StockXchange/ <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: [http://spandan.iiitb.ac.in/StockXchange/](http://spandan.iiitb.ac.in/StockXchange/)</comment>